February 6/00 8:00 am - Illawarra CC Race Results 6/02/00

Posted by on 02/6/00

To use an old saying the Tour de Huntley has been run and won. And it was a great mornings racing! Near perfect weather conditions and a field of 49 riders in 4 grades made for a good morning's racing.

Comparing the results of the 4km prologue with previous years, the times on a whole have decreased quite markedly. The A grade result could have gone to several riders but it was Craig Williams who recorded the fastest time of 5:25minutes. Darren Rolfe was 5 seconds slower as was Hans Batteard in third place.

The fastest time in B grade was recorded by Paul Blackwood 6:07, Paul Bradburn was only .76 of a second slower in second place with Terry Wall clocking a 6:10 for third. Malcolm Brown from Nowra was fastest in C grade in 6:21 with Joe Pereira a second slower and Phil Cuifo a further second behind. D grade was also won by hundredths of a second with Luis Munoz beating Alan Duffy by .22 of a second in 6:55:38. Steven Ruskin was third in 6:59.

The second event was a 27km scratch race with 5 intermediate sprints for time bonus deductions and a final sprint worth double. The intermediate sprints in A grade were evenly spread between the riders but the decisive move came on the last lap when Rolfe broke away and gained enough time on the other riders to take the overall win. Second place went to Williams with Chris Brown just edging Brendan Cato out for third place on a count back.

The B grade race was quite a spectacle with Rob Calladine breaking away half way through the first lap and staying away for the entire race distance, therefore collecting maximum bonuses along the way. Bradburn was prominent in the sprints enabling him to take out second place overall from Blackwood.

Jason Johnson's condition is improving with every race as was evident by the amount of bonuses he collected during the C grade race, but it was Cuifo and Dave Morris who threw caution to the wind and broke away picking up bonuses at every sprint. Cuifo was too strong for Morris and ran out winner overall, Pereira picked up enough minor placings to take out third place.

As usual the D grade race was between the elder statesmen, new and younger riders. It ended up the closest result in all of the grades with Duffy winning by 5 seconds from Munoz and Ruskin only a further second behind.

Next week's race is a 37.5km handicap with group 1 providing the marshals.